Working Ethics
by formerlyknownasone
Summary: I bet you all can't imagine me, Draco Malfoy, working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Me. But hey, they say a career builds character. Or something like that. DMHG oneshot.


**I'm finally back with a new one-shot after a tremendous amount of homework and exams. This one is DMHG, so enjoy. **

**This one is partially inspired by my older work**_** Draco Malfoy's Essay on the Polyjuice Potion**_**. Read**** it if you can, but its not really necessary to understand this piece. Like, only slight companion-ish, I guess.**

**

* * *

**I'm a nasty git, or so you have heard. 

And a rich one at that too.

It is kind of difficult for you to imagine then, that for the past two and a half years of my life, I have taken to working in the Ministry of Magic. In the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, no less. Some may be more appalled to hear this fact (like a messy black-haired man) than to hear that I, the mighty Draco Malfoy, have taken up the job.

"But Malfoy, you don't even obey the rules. You_ break_ them," was all Harry Potter said. I am slightly inclined to agree, but let's not get there.

So as I have been saying, I work as a lowly minion in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The wage is meagre, and the hours are terrible. The only benefit of this job I can think at the top of my head now is that I get discounted fines when I accidentally Apparate into some non-Apparition area. This however, I cannot deny, does come in handy sometimes.

But hey, they say a career builds character. Or something like that.

However, now that I think of it, this job does have some perks of its own. For example, my desk is situated right opposite (seven tiles down) the desk of a certain Hermione Granger's. For some reason, this drives her almost as mad as the fact that I even _qualify_ to work here.

"I studied for every exam since first year. He_ bribes_ the teacher. I studied for OWLs. He _bribes_ the teacher. I memorized the entire school syllabus. He _bribes_ the teacher. I go to the library every bloody day so that I can have a decent job. What does the smart ass do? He _bribes_ the teacher."

I hear her mutter this from time to time, and I find it absolutely hilarious.

Today was like any other day of work (read: it's boring and tiring). I go to my desk at ten o' clock, and do my thing. I write several reports, and I'm supposed to forward/approve of proposals for law modification to the head honcho or burn/reject them. Personally I prefer the latter option.

Today I see a nice pink file lying innocently at the top of my desk. I smirk. Of course, this is Granger's.

The real reason, of course, why she totally hates me being here is the fact that she makes a lot of proposals to enhance law enforcement. She writes them, she submits them to me. And I reject them. She sends at least one every week since I work here.

Too bad all proposals must be approved by every single department member first (and there's only the two of us minions here). This basically translates to the fact that she somehow has to get her proposal pass _me._

I am sad to say for her that she never will.

I see her eyeing me from her desk, and I greet her nonchalantly as I could, though I feel very much like grinning. I carefully sit down on my chair and start work by picking up a brown envelope in my tray, but not before making sure that she sees me carelessly tossing her pink file aside. I hear the sharp clank of her black heels, and I know that I did exactly the right thing.

I dip the nib of my quill into the ink bottle, pretending to be absorbed in my work, accidentally-on-purpose pushing her little pink file off my desk with my elbows. It lands on the floor with a loud smack, and I ignore it. I hear a sharp intake of breath, and I am sure this is a sign that I have gotten on her nerves. In fact, I am very tempted to tell her to stop breathing so loudly. It is very unladylike.

"Malfoy, you dropped this."

She is standing beside my desk now, placing the file back on the table, her teeth gritting. I noticed that the colour of her file matches the colour of her cheeks, and I wonder if she did that on purpose. It is very becoming on her, I must say.

"Thank you," I tell her, pretending not to be bothered at all.

I spend the next few hours looking through the most boring reports I have ever seen. I read something that sounds like a cross between Yiddish and troll, and scanned several articles with familiar titles like_ Reasons for the Acceptance of Centaurs_. Most were pretty dull, I admit, but for some unexplainable reason I do not feel like reading those reports. I felt like irritating Granger, which is what I did.

As I pick up the pale pink file I give out a loud sigh, as if reluctant to read it. This action did not go unnoticed by a certain brunette, and from the corner of my eye I see her trying not to flare up. She is of course, failing miserably at her task.

The parchment she wrote on is labelled carefully with her tiny methodical handwriting, with formally numbered pages and bulleted points. I am unimpressed by this. She should be familiar with the standard proposal protocol now, having submitted countless ones over the years. I am also unsurprised as my eye flicker to the top of the parchment to see the title of her proposal: It has been the same for quite a while.

Elf Liberation Front Movement.

You see, Granger is still very much hung up about the whole Elf Liberation Front thing. As if it wasn't enough to set up some secret society called SPUG in school, she just had to do more. No, she is unsatisfied with that. So she spends her free time working her pretty ass up to draft new laws on elf liberation and cruelty, which of course, I reject mercilessly.

What can I say? It against my principles to inflict cruelty to living things.

I suggested once that perhaps this was the reason she was so freaking uptight. I even kindly recommended her to take the stick out of her ass once in a while and go on dates. This earned me a whack on the head, and I learned to keep my mouth wisely shut from that ungrateful girl ever since.

So under the pretext of correcting her document, I idly doodle on her precious proposal, giving out a few well-timed yawns at appropriate times. The whole time I could feel her gaze on me, and needless to say I enjoy every bit of the power I lord over Hermione Granger. At last I could stand it no longer, and I chuck the file somewhere in my drawer.

"Sorry Granger, it's a no-no," I drawl, coolly waiting for her reaction.

As expected, she slams the table and stands up, glaring at me for a minute before marching out of the door. As she does this, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter come strolling in. She passes them without the briefest comment at all. I feel a surge of pleasure as I tilt my chair and placed my feet on my desk.

"You know, you should just stop irritating Hermione for the heck of it," Harry tells me, flopping into Hermione's empty seat. For some reason, this irritates me slightly.

"I don't do it on purpose."

"Then why don't you just bloody sign her proposal?" Harry asks.

"Yeah," Ron adds resentfully "We have to listen to her complaining all the time."

I rolled my eyes. This is Ron Weasley after all.

"I'm sorry if I am entitled to my own opinion," I tell them ungraciously " But I have a problem with ethical issues."

"So you think it's unethical for Hermione to stop complaining?" Ron asks confusedly. Again I resist the urge to hit him and reminded myself that I should be used to his childish behaviour by now.

"No, _Ronald Bilius_, I think it's extremely unethical to liberate the elves," I explain. "They would be miserable without work. It's cruelty to make them _stop_ working."

They consider this for a moment. I hate the pregnant pause as try to comprehend what I said.

"Anyway, why are you guys down here? Didn't you sign a contract of slavery called work?" I asked viciously.

"It's lunch!" Ron says brightly, and I once again feel a twinge of jealousy.

The reason why I'm particularly envious of Ronald Weasley is that he has the coolest job on earth. Though he claims he would rather be an Auror (I hope the Ministry isn't seriously considering this), I know he is rather satisfied with his job in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. It's unfair how life can seem: we both work at the ministry, but he? He gets cheap tickets for prime seats at Quidditch Games. I get discounted fines.

You tell me the meaning of fair here.

"Anyway Malfoy doesn't need lunch," Harry says randomly, flicking through one of Hermione's Daily Prophet newspaper.

"Oh?"

"Please, with the amount of money stashed into your bank, you can easily afford ten meals a day. You certainly don't need something as trivial as_ lunch _in between all your meals."

Sheesh. As if I didn't know. But as I told you, I believe a job builds character.

"I beg to differ. I will have you know that I work extremely hard to keep my job," I retort, raising my eyebrow.

"You can't be working too hard." Harry says matter-of-factly, calmly meeting my gaze. He is not intimidated by my evil glares.

"EXCUSE ME? What makes you think so?" I coloured angrily. It's almost as if he thinks I spend my time in this dingy office reading Quibbler. Which he did caught me, once or twice.

"Well, you don't even seem to read your work."

At this point of time Hermione came back, still fuming. Harry and Ron took cue from her not-so-good mood and began excusing themselves from here. I can see why though: no one wants to be in the same room with a time-bomb.

Lucky me.

Before they left though, Harry turns to me and whisper, "A bit of advice? One, please try to at least read what you are suppose to be working on. Two, refer to one of her old pieces to see what I mean."

My god. He knows.

He caught me there.

He really did. But I mean, did he really expect me to _read _Hermione's report? Her handwriting's like, tiny. And unfortunately, every single of her proposals were extremely thick. No one really expects me to pay attention… Right?

I think so.

Fine, he caught me. Big deal. It's not as he could do anything about it.

Still, I wonder what he meant by his advice. Hmmm.

It's of course, of no serious consequence. But to play safe, I think it may be better to find out.

I cautiously open my drawers and pull out several of old Hermione's proposals. They look innocent enough. I open one of the files, trying to read her handwriting through my untidy doodling and scrawlsI am trying to understand what Potter means, you see.

_The Elf Liberation Front Movement by Hermione Granger_

_For many years the wizarding world of witches and warlocks have been stereotyped as the most superior of races, branding the rest of magical creatures as inferior. Cruelty has been inflicted for thousands of years on generation of elves, marking them with servitude and slavery for entire life. Draco Malfoy is an idiot, although a hot one at thatt. Hence, the solution to this is…_

Wait a minute… My eyes reverted back to the second last line I read.

_Draco Malfoy is an idiot. _

It surprises me. How could I have not notice this before?

I scanned through the rest of the report, which goes on insulting me and is made up of incoherent sentences_. Malfoy has no idea what I am writing about because he's not even reading this. Malfoy is hot. Draco is irresistible when he wears a black tie. I wonder how long is it going to take him to realise that this report is not really on elf liberation? _I flick through the other proposals-- they were the same.

It takes me a moment to realise that Hermione Granger hasn't been writing law legislation reports at all. The joke was on me.

On me!

I storm to her desk (seven tiles away) and throw down all her files. She looks up coolly at me and then at her so-called proposals, a hint of snigger on her face.

"Took you that long to notice," was all she said, facing me directly with her arms folded.

"You think this is funny don't you?" I retort, half angry and half impressed by her.

"Yes."

"You did this in hopes of humiliating me."

"Yes."

"You outsmarted me."

"Yes."

"How can you Granger?" I ask, horrified. She shrugs her shoulders and smiles.

"It was funny. I just wanted to see how long it takes for you to notice what I wrote. You haven't been paying attention, I noticed."

I am utterly speechless.

"I was beginning to wonder how long it will take for someone so amazingly dense like you to notice. Let me guess, Harry told you?" Granger continues, a smirk gracing her features.

How can she do something so… Cool and embarrassing at the same time?

By golly. She has a sense of humour _after all. _But I can't just let her win

"That was totally underhand," I told her.

"_Please_, you used to do it too."

That's a lie. Perhaps a little love confession or two in my homework, but that's it.

"I so do not!"

"You do too. You BS-ed your potions essays all over the same way in Hogwarts, and Snape didn't even noticed."

"How did you know?" I asked, amazed.

"I saw one of your essays. It's almost devastating to see how Snape can actually give you an 'O' for your substandard work and your declarations of love to me." Granger replies.

_She saw my confessions. She saw my confessions… She saw my confessions?_

_She saw my confessions!_

"Oh."

"Oh." She echoes sarcastically.

"So," I say nonchalantly, leaning on her desk. I remember parts of her wonderful proposals highlighting me as a handsome man.

"So _what_?"

"You think I am hot."

Her cheeks turn a brilliant colour.

"Do I?"

"You think I am irresistible."

She smiles at me. Her smile is rather pretty, I think.

"As much as you 'end up moaning and groaning' about your unrequited love about me."

I can't believe two things at this point of time. One: she can remember what I wrote in my potions essay so many years ago! Two: She finds me irresistible.

It's technically impossible to be angry with someone like that. Although…

Bah, screw it.

"So, Granger," I say conversationally to her again. "What are you doing after work tonight?"

* * *

**This was quite fun to write. I enjoy light-hearted fics, they are a pleasure to write or think about. Maybe this is a bit cheesy, but hey, romance is cheesy at times too.**

**The potions essay Hermione read about is based on my earlier work, Draco Malfoy's Essay on Polyjuice Potion. You can see it if you like. Haha I was re-reading it the other day and bam! This came to me.**

**Lol. Drop a review or two for both fics if you can.**


End file.
